Bo-Jangles

In case it's of any use to anyone else who might be trying to crunch numbers for cost of living, here goes with a summary of where all the money went from my bank account in the past year. OMG at the grocery costs, that's just for two adults - not an army.

AA Membership $115.75
Bank and card fees $245.00
Books (Kindle) $524.37
Textbooks $399.70
Car Rego $112.16
Car Service $194.00
Cash $320.00
Cat Food (vets) $230.90
Course Fees (two semesters) $1,490.00
Dentist $485.70
Donations $62.31
Eating out $1,592.37
Electricity $2,111.98
Events, cinema, other entertainment $1,550.24
Exercise classes $640.00
Garden $408.65
Gifts $1,074.10
Glasses $404.00 (Specsavers)
Groceries $10,978.90
Hairdressers $762.66
Health (Doctors, prescriptions and pharmacy) $790.74
Homeware $4,212.20 (includes Washing machine & Vacuum Cleaner)
Insurance (House, contents and one car) $1,913.73
Miscellaneous other stuff $2,492.69
Mobile Phone $350.00
Mortgage $25,532
Osteopath $240.00
Parking $189.20
Petrol $1,513.10
Phone & Broadband $1,401.42
Physio $885.40
Postage $46.70
Rates $2,447.24
Rubbish collection $209.10
Shoes & clothes $1,169.68
Sky TV $775.47
Travel & accommodation (two weekends in NZ) $2,766.31
Vet $3,050.77
Water (metered) $484.30
WOF $49.00
Work lunches & coffees $810.42
Total $75,032.26

This is just all the stuff that had been paid out by me from my own money for my personal expenses, dentists, doctors and such like and our shared joint account for housekeeping stuff - it excludes a whole host of other incidental expenses such as lunches, gifts, clothes and things that Mr B-J will have bought or paid out from his own account that are not included here. He has a company vehicle and mobile phone.

I will be having some stern words with myself and will definitely be reigning back on frivolities and luxury goods such as and .

elonii

This is really, really useful thank you so much for putting this on here! That looks like a pretty nice lifestyle so gives me a good outline to base things off.

We plan a rekke next year to see how we feel about NZ. It does appear we'd need to look at growing our own cucumbers. Fortunately neither of us like those!

MrsFychan

only had a quick glance but wow your petrol is low

Mishclark

This is very handy thanks Bo Jangles!! This time I am going as a single income earner so a totally different ball game..

Michelle

RobClubley

I should be able to do one of these as I keep track of everything. Not broken down quite so well though. Hang on...

RobClubley

Well ours looks quite different.

This is for two adults, one six year-old, four cats, six chickens, two rabbits and a large dog.
We have two cars which work and an expensive dream car project which currently does not.

We've been trying hard recently to reduce grocery costs, as well as drastically reducing our takeaway food habit, by signing up for Bargain Box. ( https://bargainbox.co.nz/ ) It's working well for us.

Bank fees $177.322
Pets (food, vets, groomers etc) $2221.88
After school care $1952
Clothing $1829.4
Meals out, coffees, takeaways $4107.96
Education (school donations, books, swimming lessons etc) $612.18
Entertainment (Books, movies, music, TV shows, downloads etc) $1937.16
Groceries (including most pet food) $11697.54
Household (garden, appliances, maintenance etc) $4121.4
New sofa and vacuum cleaner $5600
Insurance (house, contents, life) $5365.6
Mortgage Interest $17138.37
Medical (doctors and dentists, glasses) $1464.89
Misc (cash purchases) $3602.28
Motor (petrol, rego, wof, car insurance, servicing, repairs) $4031.04
Pressies (inc trampoline for Christmas ) $1007.03
Rates $2063.48
Train tickets to get to work $1392.4
Gas and electric $3558.79

Project car!! $17181.8 (Original budget was $12-15k. It was optimistic to say the least)

Total $91062.522

Charismatic

$800ish to watch a bit of telly? Waste of time anyway.

Clappy

Thanks for sharing that, it is the sort of information that people often ask about on here so should be useful for someone.

It is only a little bit more than $200 per week. We (two adults and two cats) get through more than that per week so perhaps I should start to grow my own fruit and vegetables.

Bo-Jangles

Have a little car and don't get out much other than to work and back every day - I fill up about once per fortnight and costs me around $60 to $65 each time.

Kotare

I am sure the above listings are valuable to migrants, but the totals would terrify me. Be aware that these could easily be a lot less and need to be adjusted to fit your lifestyle and where you live etc.

As simple examples: our banking costs are nil (internet banking), our electrical/gas charges are $1500 annually (in the north), Aracana dog food costs us $70 a month (border collie), medical/dentist about $600 for two annually, eating out monthly in the top Keri restaurants/vineyards $1600 annually and so on and so forth.

RobClubley

I was thinking the gas and electric looked expensive then I remembered that also includes phone and internet.
So: Phone and internet - $1200
Gas $650
Electric $1700 ish

Bumptious

Wow that's a lot of money. Have no idea what we spend on what as a family of 4 would hate to do the maths. We are a low income family and own our house and only one car. I am sure we spend too much on groceries though, rarely have takeaways, but like wine so probably spend too much on that. Mmmm thanks for posting anyway very interesting reading.

Munchkjn

I've noticed Petrol can be anything as much as 20c a litre cheaper in Levin than 20kms down the road in Otaki.. what's that all about?

Kotare

If it helps, most supermarkets give 6-10c off on some days a week. We use AA fuel cards (don't have to belong to AA) which give us a similar permanent discount - shop around. GULL or whatever it is called today are usually significantly cheaper.....

escapedtonz

That's the GULL effect.
The GULL at Levin is or was the most southerly GULL in the country, or it was up until recently as I've heard there's one opening down the Kapiti soon I think ?
GULL has also been recently taken over by Caltex Australia which has nothing to do with Caltex NZ but only time will tell if it'll affect GULL prices....The company says not